Gradient divergence and curl in spherical coordinates

Such caviats are omitted below but you should assume that they are present whenever differentiation by a polar parameter is involved. In
rectangular coordinates and spherical coordinates the Laplacian takes the following forms, which follow from the expressions for the gradient and
divergence. It can be written as. The direction is normal to both of these and you can get a vector in it by taking the cross product of -y, x, 0 and
x, y, z , with result xz, yz, -r 2. A multiplier which will convert its divergence to 0 must therefore have, by the product theorem, a gradient that is
multiplied by itself. You may very well encounter a need to express divergence in these coordinates in your future life, so we will carry this
approach out with spherical coordinates. The coordinates themselves are singular there! The unit vectors themselves change as you change
coordinates, so that the change in your vector consists of terms arising from the changes of the multiples and also those from changes in the unit
vectors. When you describe vectors in spherical or cylindric coordinates, that is, write vectors as sums of multiples of unit vectors in the directions
defined by these coordinates, you encounter a problem in computing derivatives. The function does this very thing, so the 0-divergence function in
the direction is. We can find neat expressions for the divergence in these coordinate systems by finding vectors pointing in the directions of these
unit vectors that have 0 divergence. This vector has divergence 2z, and the form rz u r - r 2 u z. We can invoke the result of the last exercise to
introduce a multiplier that will get rid of that divergence. Apply it to find the Laplacian in cylindric coordinates. The vector -y, x points in the
direction and has 0 divergence already. The second terms in the product rule will all be 0. It can also be written as or as. It is the first of these two
terms, rz u r which is xz, yz that has the non-vanishing divergence and it is the x and y which lead to it, not the z factor. Then we write our vector
field as a linear combination of these instead of as linear combinations of unit vectors. This can be done by finding the divergence of any vectors in
these directions and figuring out what multiple you need apply in each case to cancel its divergence out, again using the product theorem for
divergence. To summarize, the vectors have 0 divergence. In the last line here we used the form of the gradient in spherical coordinates: The only
non-trivial step in doing this is finding vectors in the various required directions that have 0 divergence. The resulting vector has the form whose
length is It can therefore be written as. If we define these combinations to be respectively, a vector of the form is also writable as. Often it will
NOT hold at the origin of your coordinates. It appears in particular in the combination which is called the Laplacian of f. This last expression is not
very pretty but it is quite important in physical applications. By the product rule, the expression for the divergence we seek will be a sum over the
three directions of the dot product of one of these vectors with the gradient of its coefficient. The vector x, y, z points in the radial direction in
spherical coordinates, which we call the direction. Also recall that r is sin. Its divergence is 3. What function of r should you multiply it by to get a
vector with divergence 0?

The vector x, y, z points in the radial direction in spherical coordinates, which we call the direction. In rectangular coordinates and spherical
coordinates the Laplacian takes the following forms, which follow from the expressions for the gradient and divergence. Apply it to find the
Laplacian in cylindric coordinates. A multiplier which will convert its divergence to 0 must therefore have, by the product theorem, a gradient that is
multiplied by itself. This can be done by finding the divergence of any vectors in these directions and figuring out what multiple you need apply in
each case to cancel its divergence out, again using the product theorem for divergence. In the last line here we used the form of the gradient in
spherical coordinates: The coordinates themselves are singular there! If we define these combinations to be respectively, a vector of the form is
also writable as. To summarize, the vectors have 0 divergence. It appears in particular in the combination which is called the Laplacian of f. Then
we write our vector field as a linear combination of these instead of as linear combinations of unit vectors. Often it will NOT hold at the origin of
your coordinates. It can also be written as or as. The function does this very thing, so the 0-divergence function in the direction is. The direction is
normal to both of these and you can get a vector in it by taking the cross product of -y, x, 0 and x, y, z , with result xz, yz, -r 2. Its divergence is 3.
The vector -y, x points in the direction and has 0 divergence already. We can find neat expressions for the divergence in these coordinate systems
by finding vectors pointing in the directions of these unit vectors that have 0 divergence. By the product rule, the expression for the divergence we
seek will be a sum over the three directions of the dot product of one of these vectors with the gradient of its coefficient. The second terms in the
product rule will all be 0. We can invoke the result of the last exercise to introduce a multiplier that will get rid of that divergence. It is the first of
these two terms, rz u r which is xz, yz that has the non-vanishing divergence and it is the x and y which lead to it, not the z factor. Such caviats are
omitted below but you should assume that they are present whenever differentiation by a polar parameter is involved. This vector has divergence
2z, and the form rz u r - r 2 u z. The unit vectors themselves change as you change coordinates, so that the change in your vector consists of terms
arising from the changes of the multiples and also those from changes in the unit vectors. This last expression is not very pretty but it is quite
important in physical applications. When you describe vectors in spherical or cylindric coordinates, that is, write vectors as sums of multiples of unit
vectors in the directions defined by these coordinates, you encounter a problem in computing derivatives. You may very well encounter a need to
express divergence in these coordinates in your future life, so we will carry this approach out with spherical coordinates. It can be written as. The
only non-trivial step in doing this is finding vectors in the various required directions that have 0 divergence.

The Divergence in Spherical Coordinates

 To summarize, the vectors have 0 divergence. What function of r should you multiply it by to get a vector with divergence 0? The vector -y, x
points in the direction and has 0 divergence already. The resulting vector has the form whose length is It can therefore be written as. In the last line
here we used the form of the gradient in spherical coordinates: In rectangular coordinates and spherical coordinates the Laplacian takes the
following forms, which follow from the expressions for the gradient and divergence. The coordinates themselves are gradient divergence and curl
in spherical coordinates there! The unit vectors themselves change as you change coordinates, so that the change in your vector consists of terms
arising from the changes of the multiples and also those from changes in the unit vectors. When you describe vectors in spherical or cylindric
coordinates, that is, write vectors as sums of multiples of unit vectors in the directions defined by these coordinates, you encounter a problem in
computing derivatives. It can be written as. Then we write our vector field as a linear combination of these instead of as linear combinations of unit
vectors. Gradient divergence and curl in spherical coordinates last expression is not very pretty but it is quite important in physical
applications. Such caviats are omitted below but you should assume that they are present whenever differentiation by a polar parameter is
involved. The function does this very thing, so the 0-divergence function in the gradient divergence and curl in spherical coordinates is. By the
product rule, the expression for the divergence we seek will be a sum over the three directions of the dot product of one of these vectors with the
gradient of its coefficient. You may very well encounter a need to express divergence in these coordinates in your future life, so we will carry this
approach out with spherical coordinates. Also recall that r is sin. The direction is normal to both of these and you can get a vector in it by taking
the cross product of -y, x, 0 and x, y, zwith result xz, yz, -r 2. The only non-trivial step in doing this is finding vectors in the various required
directions that have 0 divergence. We can find neat expressions for the divergence in these coordinate systems by finding vectors pointing in the
directions of these unit vectors that have 0 divergence.